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Topic: Garrow's Law - Genealogy (Read 10906 times)

Garrow's law is back and I wondered if I could set Rootschatters the challenge of trying to find out more about his actual life?

In the series his love interest, Sarah, was married to Arthur Hill, Viscount Fairford. In reality she was his mistress and their son was called William Arthur Dorehill. She then had two children with Garrow - David William 1781-1827 and Eliza Sophia 1783-1857 William Garrow of Grays Inn eventually married Sarah Dore by licence at St George the Martyr Camden on 17 March 1793. Both were OTP and the witnesses were Mary Ann Cooper and John Silvester ( who is his enemy in the series.)

William Garrow died at Pegwell Cottage Ramsgate on 24 September 1840 and was buried at St Lawrence Thanet. According to Wiki Sarah Garrow was buried at Darenth Kent. I looked this up on Medway Ancestors and the register has the entry: Garrow, Sarah wife of William Garrow Esq Kings Council from the parish of St George the Martyr was buried July 6 1808. The Darenth register is all over the place, but I haven't, as yet, found any possible baptism of a Sarah Dore there, but it suggests her family came from North West Kent.

Can we find out who Sarah Dore was and sort out the Garrow family?

It annoys me that the TV series, which appears to be so accurate actually messes around with the truth so much.

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Eliza Sophia d/o William and Sarah Garrow of Warwick Court born 18 June 1784 baptised 30 September 1784 St Andrew Holborn. David William Garrow s/o William and Sarah Garrow born 15 April 1781 baptised 5 October 1784 St. Andrew Holborn.

Why, as they were free to marry, didn't they marry until 10 years after their children were born? Presumably they were living as man and wife as there is no indication on the children'ts baptisms that they were illegitimate.

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The book 'Sir William Garrow' published 2010 by Waterside Press authors John Hosteller and Richard Braby, also includes the detail of 20 years of the research by Richard Braby a descendant of William Garrow on his family's genealogy.

On Sarah (circa 1752-1808) he states

'Research has uncovered hints of high birth Irish family background.... And then there is the story of Sarah's previous marriage, if indeed it was a marriage. Based on tradition in the Dorehill family, Sarah Dore had some form of marriage to Arthur Moyses Hill....who later became the 2nd Marquis of Downshire.....It is the family tradition that the Hill family disapproved of the "marriage" because Sarah did not bring adequate wealth to the union, and had it annulled. To establish his parentage, William Arthur (born 1778) was given the surname of Dore Hill...'

'...William Arthur received received lifetime financial support from the Downshires, and they considered him in a family way....letters contain a friendly exchange of information on family matters... These letters also suggest that the financial support for William Arthur provided by the Downshires to Sarah as William Arthur's mother, may have also provided early financial support to Sarah and William Garrow as they started their own family. This would have been while William Garrow was a struggling student and then a new member of the Bar.'

Arthur William Moyses Hill married a notable heiress in 1786. He died early and his will acknowledged William Arthur as his son along with two illegitimate children of his, as well as his legitimate children.

Sadly the most disappointing thing about the book is the information that though William Garrow (1760-1840) did indeed 'revolutionise the practice of criminal law... through the extraordinary force of his character and conduct in the first ten years (1783-1793) of his practice during which he defended over 1,000 clients.... after his incandescent first decade at the defence Bar... he became a reactionary Tory and conducted some of Pitt's paranoid prosecutions against radicals. They were defended by his friend and rival Lord Erskine, who became in consequence the man more celebrated.'

This led to William Garrow's knighthood, becoming an MP for a rotten borough and pursuing a career in parliament opposing at times legal reforms.

Though that might have spoilt the book a little for me (I obtained a copy after watching the first series, so my expectations of the man were probably set too high by the dramatisation) it doesn't spoil the drama series since that is 'based' on William Garrow's actual cases and there are a lot to choose from, though the personal events have been more dramatised and the time line of events shifted in consequence.

The family history of the man, his whole life and career as detailed in the book are extremely interesting.

Sarah is buried at Darenth next to the remains of Margaret Dore (circa 1714-1801) and George Dore (circa 1745-1805) who might be her mother and brother.

The Darenth register is interesting - along with Sarah's burial is William Dore of St James Clerkenwell buried 21 December 1803. Margaret Dore from Lambeth in Surrey buried 19 July 1804 and George Dore from the parish of Sutton-at-Hone (next to Darenth) buried 25 October 1805.

Why were they buried at Darenth? The IGI has a William and Margaret Door having children at Dartford: George 1744, William 1742 and Sarah 1740 - unfortunately Sarah seems to have died in 1740, but perhaps there was a another one? Looking on the internet I found The Garrow Society, but they don't seem to have got very far in finding Sarah's family. I wonder if the answer to Sarah's ancestry lies not in Ireland but Kent?

If Arthur Hill married in 1786, while Sarah was very much alive surely if they had actually been married they would have needed an Act of Parliament to divorce?

To be honest, I've read some of the transcripts from Old Bailey trials and William Garrow doesn't come across as that revolutionary.

I'm pretty certain the Irish link is just a story - William Dore married Margaret Munn at Darenth 30 October 1738. http://www.rootschat.com/links/0aff/ This ties in nicely with the children born at Dartford. Unfortunately Sarah Door baptized 6 June 1740 was buried 13 October 1740 at Dartford. I can't see the baptism of another Sarah at Dartford or at Darenth - perhaps a second Sarah wasn't baptised? or perhaps the entry was missing from the register? The Dartford registers are very neat and look to have been written up later.

It would seem very unlikely that the William and Margaret Dore buried at Darenth weren't her parents and George was her brother.

'Garrow had to argue for the right to argue the case for defendants and more or less invented the art of the advocate cross-examining prosecution witnesses. Until then such cross-examination as there was was done by the judge or even the jury. Criminal defendants in the main were desperately poor or just desperate and the thief catchers and bounty hunters who testified against them often not much better. The better class of lawyer turned their noses up at such low-life matters but Garrow’s nose for justice established key features of the adversarial trial as we know it today.'

I have got a slight vested interest in William Garrow as he was part of the prosecution against John Bonus, who I believe was my OH's distant ancestor, in his trial for forgery in 1792. He was hanged - but he did deliberately forge a bill for a very large sum of money and so there was no question over his guilt. Garrow seems to have started off working more for the defence and then moved over to the prosecution as time went on, at the same time that he moved from liberal to the right.

I haven't found a baptism for Sarah Dore yet, but I think she may well turn out just to be an ordinary girl from Kent and not the mysterious, glamorous character some people are hoping she was.

I also have a slight vested interest in William Garrow as he was my 2nd cousin 7 x removed . I too have been researching Sarah Dore for some years but seem to have got no further than anyone else. Without a baptism it is hard to prove,There is also an Elizabeth Strutton Munn 1693-1741 burried next so Sarah , quite possibly Margaret Munn Dore's mother.There is also a marriage for Elizabeth Strutton 14 Oct 1712 Gravesend Kent to a Thomas Munn .It would appear if there is an Irish connection it is distant or just through Arthur Hill.On the other hand if she was just an ordinary girl from Kent , how would she have met Arthur Hill and why would the Downshire's have given William Arthur lifelong financial support.Jane

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